Plane carrying 188 people crashes after taking off from Jakarta

A Lion Air plane.
(Image credit: Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images)

Shortly after takeoff from Jakarta Monday morning, a Lion Air Boeing 737 plane carrying 188 passengers and crew members crashed into the sea, Indonesia's National Search and Rescue Agency said.

Search and rescue boats are now in the area of the crash, and have collected the plane's fuselage. The flight was headed to Pangkal Pinang, the main city in the Bangka Belitung Islands off Sumatra, and was scheduled to take a little more than an hour. It is unclear if there are any survivors. Lion Air is a low-cost Indonesian airline.

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Catherine Garcia

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.